But we gamble still. The gambling on the Turf (now the most uncertain of all 'games of chance') was, lately, something that rang through and startled the entire nation. We gamble in the funds. We gamble in endless companies (limited)--all resulting from the same passion of our nature, which led to the gambling of former times with cards, with dice, at Piquet, Basset, Faro, Hazard, E O, _Roulette_, and _Rouge et Noir_. At a recent memorable trial, the Lord Chief Justice of England exclaimed--'There can be no doubt--any one who looks around him cannot fail to perceive--that a spirit of speculation and gambling has taken hold of the minds of large classes of the population. Men who were wont to be satisfied with moderate gain and safe investments seem now to be animated by a spirit of greed after gain, which makes them ready to embark their fortunes, however hardly gained, in the vain hope of realizing immense returns by premiums upon shares, and of making more than safe and reasonable gains. We see that continually.' In fact, we may not be a jot better morally than our forefathers. But that is no reason why we should not frown over the story of their horrid sins, and, 'having a good conscience,' think what sad dogs they were in their generation--knowing, as we do, that none of us at the present day lose _FIFTY OR A HUNDRED THOUSAND POUNDS_ at play, at a sitting, in one single night--as was certainly no very uncommon 'event' in those palmy days of gaming; and that we could not--as was done in 1820--produce a list of _FIVE HUNDRED_ names (in London alone) of noblemen, gentlemen, officers of the Army and Navy, and clergymen, who were veteran or indefatigable gamesters, besides 'clerks, grocers, horse-dealers, linen-drapers, silk-mercers, masons, builders, timber-merchants, booksellers, &c., &c., and men of the very lowest walks of life,' who frequented the numerous gaming houses throughout the metropolis--to their ruin and that of their families more or less (as deploringly lamented by Captain Gronow), and not a few of them, no doubt, finding themselves in that position in which they could exclaim, at _OUR_ remonstrance, as feelingly as did King Richard-- 'Slave! I have set my life upon a _CAST_, And I will stand the _HAZARD OF THE DIE!_' Nor is gaming as yet extinct among us. Every now and then a batch of youngsters is brought before the magistrates charged with vulgar 'tossing' in the streets; and every now and then we hear of some victim of genteel gambling, as recently--in the month of February, 1868--when 'a young member of the aristocracy lost L10,000 at Whist.' Nay, at the commencement of the present year there appeared in a daily paper the following startling announcement to the editor:--